2022 European Research Prize
Air de jeux: Protecting Children from Air Pollution by Designing Urban Environmental Installations

Worldwide air pollution is estimated to kill seven million people every year. Last year only in Belgium, almost 7,500 premature deaths were associated with high air contaminant concentrations. Consistently, the Brussels Capital Region (BCR) ranks among the top ten cities with the worst health impacts from exposure to air pollution in Europe. The environmental inequality across the BCR has also become a topic of public concern, with the highest air contaminant concentrations affecting the most vulnerable communities, especially children.

In response, in 2021 the government of the BCR launched (1) a large air quality monitoring campaign in partnership with local NGOs and high education institutions [1] and (2) urban planning and design initiatives such as School Streets [2] and Brussels Contrat École, [3] which aim to reduce local emission sources around schools and in other urban spaces frequented by children. Architectural strategies to reduce exposure to outdoor air pollution (i.e., in school courtyards, school streets, etc.) could provide a significant contribution.

In this context, the “Air de jeux” project will form a partnership between the Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain), academics from Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), local NGOs, the BuildWind enterprise, and municipal representatives to propose urban environmental installations to mitigate outdoor air pollutant exposure for children. This research work will be developed along a design course and intensive studio workshop that will be part of the International Master in Architecture at LOCI-UCLouvain, [4] and will be disseminated through an international conference that will take place in the 2024 spring semester, followed by the publication of a report.

The “Air de jeux” project will be composed of an interdisciplinary team of professors from UCLouvain: Maider Llaguno-Munitxa, Chiara Cavalieri, Beatrice Lampariello, Damien Claeys, Gerald Ledent, Christine Fontaine, and Geoffrey Van Moeseke. Collaborators specialized on urban ecology, microclimatology, and atmospheric physics include: Aurelie Bellemans (Professor, Vrije Universiteit Brussel), Nicola DaSchio (Vrije Universiteit Brussel), and Alessandro Gambale (CEO, BuildWind-BCR). In addition to the collaborators, the team will partner with the NGO Les chercheurs d’air, who have agreed to build on their existing School Streets project. Pierre Dornier (President, Les chercheurs d’air) will have an advisory role on the project. The proposed interdisciplinary team composed of architects, urbanists, historians, environmental scientists, and local NGO representatives will empower students to engage with combined research methods using geospatial analysis, environmental sensing, modeling, and visualization protocols within a design-oriented workflow.

Notes

[1] CurieuzenAir is known today as the most extensive air quality sensing network in Europe with more than 700 air quality sensing kits installed across the BCR territory. See CurieuzenAir, accessed February 2, 2023, https://curieuzenair.brussels/en/home.

[2] The School Streets project lead by the City of Brussels wants to discourage car traffic in the streets surrounding schools to improve the environmental conditions and provide public space to children. See “School Streets,” City of Brussels, accessed February 2, 2023, https://www.brussels.be/school-street.

[3] The Brussels Contrat École is a regional urban renewal program whose ambition is to improve the school environment in Brussels and to strengthen the relationship between the school and its neighborhood. See “Contrat École,” perspective.brussels, accessed February 2, 2023, https://perspective.brussels/fr/projets/contrat-ecole.

[4] The LOCI-LAB|UCLouvain International Master’s in Architecture is a master’s degree that was created in 2021. See “International Master’s in Architecture,” accessed February 2, 2023, https://loci-ima.com.

“Air de jeux” incorporates air quality into the academic curriculum in schools of architecture, expanding the academic field by creating networks with public institutions and nonprofit associations committed to public health to work together on the redesign of one of the most vulnerable urban spaces: school environments.

The winning proposal combines data collection, analysis, critical reflection, and prototyping of solutions with the ambition of creating not only a working methodology that can be extrapolated to other schools of architecture but also the production of innovative designs to counteract the invisible pandemic that plagues our cities: air pollution by nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter from fossil fuel emissions, which in turn is also one of the causes of climate change. “Air de jeux” is therefore a great initiative for the current training of young architects toward actions of direct social impact for the present and future.
Olga Subirós, Juror

The SOM Foundation is to be commended for focusing the 2022–2023 European Research Prize on “Shaping Our World Through Air,” and its attendant question, “How can air be considered while exploring new architectural environments, structural solutions, ecological strategies, and urban policies?” The winner of the prize, “Air de jeux,” led by the Université catholique de Louvain, is an interdisciplinary research project that also proposes design strategies in partnership with universities, enterprises, local government, and nongovernmental organizations. In addition, it investigates the vital intersection of air quality, urban settings, and children’s health. I certainly look forward to the outcomes of this project!
Aseem Inam, Juror

Collaborators

Aurelie Bellemans is an assistant professor at Vrije University Brussels and part of the FLOW research group. Bellemans obtained her master in Aerospace Engineering from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), and completed her PhD in plasma physics at the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics and the ULB. She did a fellowship in plasma-assisted combustion at the University of Texas prior to returning to Belgium and joining Vrije Universitait Brussel.

Nicola Da Schio is a senior researcher and project manager working for the Brussels administration for the environment (80%) and Vrije Universitait Brussel (VUB) (20%). He holds a PhD from VUB on urban ecology and a master’s degree from Science Po on urban governance. He is interested in the uneven geographies and knowledges of urban socioecological good and bad, as well as in the nexus between science, state, and civil society.

Alessandro Gambale is the CEO of BuildWind, a Brussels Capital Region-based company specialized on CFD. Gambale worked as a research engineer for the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics in Belgium where he was involved in applied research projects dealing with microfluidics and environmental fluid dynamics. He cofounded BuildWind in 2018. He holds a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from La Sapienza University.

Pierre Dornier is the founder and president of the Brussels-based NGO Les chercheurs d’air. Dornier has been working on air quality issues for the past six years, both in Belgium and in France. He also has a background in communications. He holds a professional degree in regional planning and communication, a master’s in history from the University of Strasbourg and a diploma in history and geography from the University of Toulouse.